Allow or block access to websites

Applies to managed Chrome Browsers and Chrome devices.

As a Chrome Enterprise administrator, you can blacklist and whitelist URLs so that users can only visit certain websites. Restricting users’ internet access can increase productivity and protect your organization from viruses and malicious content found on some websites.

When to blacklist and whitelist URLs

Use the blacklist and whitelist for basic URL management. If you need stronger filtering, use a content-filtering, web-proxy server or extension.

Use the URL blacklist and whitelist to:

Allow access to all URLs except the ones you block—Use the blacklist to prevent users from visiting certain websites, while allowing them access to the rest of the web.

Block access to all URLs except the ones you allow—Use the blacklist to block access to all URLs. Then, use the whitelist to allow access to a limited list of URLs.

Define exceptions to very restrictive blacklists—Use the blacklist to block access to all URLs. Then, use the whitelist to let users access certain schemes, subdomains of other domains, ports, or specific paths.

Allow Chrome Browser to open apps—Whitelist specific external protocol handlers so that Chrome Browser can automatically open certain apps.

Sometimes, the blacklist and whitelist does not work as expected. For example, if you blacklist an entire website and whitelist a specific webpage URL for that site, users might be able to access other content on that website.

Use it with URLBlacklist to allow users to access specific URLs as exceptions to the URL blacklist. The whitelist takes precedence over the blacklist. To work, you need at least one entry in the blacklist.

Unset: There are no exceptions to the URL blacklist.

Step 2: Specify URLs Chrome users can visit

Click below for the steps, based on how you want to manage these policies.

URL Blacklist is not recognized by apps that use Android System WebView. To enforce a blacklist on these apps, define the blacklisted URLs in a text file and apply the blacklist to the Android apps on an app-by-app basis. For apps that don’t use Android System WebView, see the app documentation for information on how to restrict access in a similar way.

URL Blacklist Exception is usually recognized by Android apps that use Android System WebView. However, other apps might not respect the blacklist. You can whitelist the apps that use Android System WebView and omit the ones that don’t. For information on whitelisting Android apps, see Allow the installation of approved apps.